Further Reading

A YouTube video featuring a controversial San Francisco lawyer who has been representing landlords in eviction procedures appears to have been newly restored on Tuesday after being made unavailable for a week.

Ars called Bornstein approximately an hour before the video was restored. “Because this is potentially subject to litigation, I have no comment at this time,” he said. He did not respond to further requests for comment.

Bornstein has been leading a series of similar seminars for landlords in San Francisco in recent months. A recent profile of Bornstein's efforts in the San Francisco Chronicle summarized his advice this way: "It's far better to pay tenants to leave than to evict them. Part of his job is to help convince landlords that a one-time $50,000 payment to a tenant can be worth it, especially if the tenant is about to turn 60 (and become protected and very hard to evict)."

Giving up?

It remains unclear why Bornstein waited six months before filing a copyright claim. In his initial DMCA filing, Bornstein claimed that a video shot by his own law firm—which is barely visible in the video in question—is what gave rise to the claim.

The YouTube video was shot by Jackson West, a volunteer counselor at the San Francisco Tenants Union and a writer for the SF Appeal, a local online publication. Under YouTube’s procedures, the target of such a claim can file a counter-claim, which West did immediately. That process normally takes 10 business days, but the video was restored in just a week.

West believes this speed suggests that Bornstein rescinded his copyright claim, “but I can't know that for sure via YouTube’s mechanism," he said.

YouTube did not immediately respond to Ars' request for comment.

West told Ars that upon hearing that the video was restored, he also learned that this wasn’t Bornstein’s first attempt to remove it. “When it came back up [Bornstein] had posted a comment to the video asking me to take it down three months ago, which was news to me because who invites YouTube comments into their life?” West quipped.